Q&A: what the deal with Midi and usage (copyright)?
Question by Sarah Woods: what the deal with Midi and usage (copyright)?
Hi I want to record an album of covers and for the instrumentals I would like to use midi tracks as I cant afford to pay for a live band. I’ve found the tracks that I want to use on a number of free midi sites, I asked the record companies who hold the rights to the songs if its ok to record the songs and they told me its no problem if I want to record my own versions as Long as if I want to sell, distrubute or showcase them then I must pay a licensing fee for the usage, I also contacted a music rights company who said the same thing its ok to record my own versions and get a license when I need to. The Midi tracks I ran through a notation program and created my own midis, I then stripped them down to piano tracks and then created new musical arrangements which dont sound like the orginal midi I copied and altered or the orginal song on which it was based, I checked the midis and the sites and found no names of arrangers or companies for the orginal midi, I found no copyright notices on the file, instead on the website they state that the midis are free for any usage, in fact when I type in free midis and copyright free midis several million hits pop up, so there appears to be abundance of midi files for each of the songs. My question is this why do people create midis and put them on the internet for people to use in there projects I could understand if they put there name and company details on them with some sort of license in return for a fee or percentage of profits relating to the song but they dont. Is there a service where I could get legal midi tracks to use on my album? or is this a grey area thing? Anyone have any answers
The midis would be converted into mp3 files for digital distribution if picked up by a label and they would also be converted into wave for CD, they wont be midi albums they will be album made using midi instruments such as violin, piano and drums
Best answer:
Answer by Captain Snarky
If they say copyright-free midi files, then they’re copyright free. People make them because they’re bored, because they’re music students, because they’re trying to sell the software they made it with or other equipment – all kinds of reasons. Not many people are going to want to buy an album of covers with midi instrumentation anyway so there’s not a lot of concern about people making money off of it.
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